How Green Was My Salad

The official First Day of Spring is not a calendar day in our family; for us it's always marked by Easter, when we go down to Stockton for the Mother of All Egg Hunts. James' aunt and uncle live on an island in the Delta, and the sprawling lawns and gardens around the house provide the perfect backdrop for this activity. The kids (even the ones who should technically be to old for this sort of thing) look forward to it each year with eager anticipation. That must have something to do with the large golden egg (one for each child) that has a $5 bill in it...

What I most look forward to (besides a long lazy afternoon with a huge extended family) is when all the "men folk" pile the trunk of the car with crates of asparagus from the family farm. It just wouldn't be Spring without this tradition, and I love finding new recipes each year for the days and days of asparagus we will be eating. Shaved, steamed, grilled, pressed, in salads, in pastas, in stir-frys; you name it, we've tried it.

My favorite recipe, though, is the one on the inside of the wrapper. In all the years we've been experimenting, this Asparagus Torta is the winner by far. If you'd like to try it for yourself, visit Coco's Kitchen for complete instructions. Your friends will be green with envy!

Grandpa Jack

Sadly, James' father passed away last Sunday, quietly, after struggling for several weeks with various health issues. He leaves a huge family legacy behind him, including eight grandkids and five great-grandchildren, and he was immensely proud of them all. He was always sharp as a tack and never missed a thing, never forgot a person's name, always remembered every birthday and special occasion. I know that many of James' fine qualities are inherited from his dad. To learn more about Jack, and see additional photos, go to Jack's Memorial blog. We miss you, Grandpa Jack!

Front Page News

I love it that we live in a town small enough that our local
newspaper has this as its front page story for the week:

Making Tracks at Del Mar

"Del Mar Middle School’s new field is now officially open. On Friday, students were permitted to race around the 380-meter track made of Nike grind and topped with the same mixture but colored a muted red. The first students to make the circle were sixth, seventh and eighth graders who had contributed to the school’s Leukemia Foundation. Seventh grader Wynham Guillemot and sixth grader Shannon Costello were the first boy and girl to finish the lap. Regular activities began on the field and track this week, including use of the new long jump pit."

(photo by Diane Smith)

Big Hair

Well, we all had some pretty bad Big Hair back in the 80s, but no "do" any of us ever dared to wear could come close the the look James was putting on a decade earlier (circa 1970). I mean, the afro of this turtlenecked, mustachioed, side-burn-sporting Jim simply defies gravity. Who knew that within my husband's mild-mannered exterior burns the soul of a flute-playing rocker? Jethro Tull, move over...

Fake-a-Cake

After the fun we had with Friday night's birthday cake, Chloé, Wynham and I decided on the spur of the moment to take a "beginning fondant" cake decorating class at Cake Art on Saturday afternoon. Fondant is the smooth covering you usually see on wedding cakes, and it's an amazingly pliable medium; you're only limited by your imagination when it comes to the designs you can make with the stuff.

It's always fun to watch the kids at work in this kind of environment. Even though the teacher's English is barely understandable, Chloé gets it right away and is covering her styrofoam "cake" with perfect precision. Wynham and I stare at each other as we scrape our second, third, and fourth attempts off the table and try again. The teacher gets impatient and comes over to do it for us, which rather defeats the whole purpose.

Coloring the paste for the decorations is time consuming, as you have to knead the colors in by hand, although it's great physical therapy. I don't think we would have chosen these colors or designs, but hey, we're learning something. Wynham's flowers are a marvel of minute detail. I have to admit, I brought him to the class with me because I know I'll need his help on projects that require a steady hand.

Claire is beside herself when we bring our dummies home and she discovers that we can't eat them. James wonders about the futility of our endeavors, but I'm sure he'll enjoy the results when it's his turn and the cake is real. With all the birthdays coming up in the next couple of months, we're going to get plenty of practice...

Book Learnin'

Birthdays are a great excuse for some culinary creativity. My Dad marked the beginning of another year yesterday, and we were lucky enough to celebrate it with him, so I used it as an opportunity to turn another page in my birthday-cake-making book.

Now, everybody has their traditional favorite birthday dinner in our family and you can't mess with that, but as long as the cake is the right flavor, well, anything goes. Since Dad is a writer and we were giving him some reading/writing accessory gifts, I decided to stick with that theme and make a cake that looked like a book. What a novel idea!

It's amazing what you can learn when you get an idea in your head of something you want to do, but have no concept of how to carry it out. Who knew there's a whole culture around edible ink out there? I didn't, until the day before yesterday, but I'm learning quickly. For instance, if you're going to do this kind of thing, you have to have a dedicated printer, or else get someone who does to print your design for you (which is what I did).

I just designed the pages on the home computer and then had them printed on edible rice paper. When you place the paper on your frosted cake, it's supposed to dissolve into the frosting. The piece of paper I had was really thick, so that didn't really happen, but everyone ate it anyway. The cake flavor was a disappointment -- boring chocolate cake with a buttercream that was too sweet -- although the design got rave reviews. I may not make the bestseller list this way, but at least I'm having fun...